September Is National Suicide Prevention Month – a time to raise awareness, reduce stigma, and encourage seeking help from (and offering help to) our colleagues. The healthcare community has felt the devastating impact of suicide far too many times. For the SurgeonMasters community and the greater healthcare ecosystem, we’re making a plea: OFFER and RECEIVE Buddy Aid.
Suicidal ideation may affect some physicians. Difficult human emotions impact all of us. The pressures of medicine can be extraordinary. Long hours, administrative burdens, litigation, and the expectation to just keep going can take a toll. Yet too often, physicians feel like they don’t have an outlet to share their challenges (or emotions).
SurgeonMasters advocates two supportive strategies: “Buddy Aid” and a “Buddy System.”
Anyone can offer Buddy Aid to any colleague, at any time. A Buddy System is a relationship established in advance to lower the barriers to asking for (and receiving) Buddy Aid.
Buddy Aid needs to be ingrained into our culture across the entire spectrum of human emotion, not just reserved for moments of crisis. It can be part of how we routinely support one another through the ordinary highs, lows, uncertainties, disappointments, and pressures of a career in medicine.
When selecting a Buddy for your Buddy System, choose someone you trust enough to check in with regularly, or someone who will notice and speak honestly when your signals or symptoms flare. It might be a colleague, friend, mentor, partner, or coach. A Buddy System gives someone permission before the difficult moment arrives: “If you see me changing, withdrawing, struggling, or simply not looking like myself, I want you to say something to me.”
As the supporter, Buddy Aid isn’t about having the right answers or trying to fix something. It starts with something much simpler: noticing, being present, and being willing to have an honest conversation.
This September, consider learning more about:
- Offering Buddy Aid.
- Creating a Buddy System.
- Recognizing your own signals or symptoms. What do you look like when you’re not doing well? More importantly, does someone else know?
- Identifying someone you trust to notice when these things change in the wrong direction.
- Giving that person explicit permission to speak up.
- Being willing to do the same for someone else.
- Knowing where to turn when you need additional support beyond your Buddy.
After a crisis or tragedy like a suicide, we don’t talk enough. Often, we don’t know how to talk about what happened because of shame, guilt, or countless other emotions. And sometimes we move forward too quickly because we are too busy holding everything else together. Those are precisely the moments when Buddy Aid matters, not only for the person most visibly affected, but for colleagues, partners, trainees, staff, and others carrying the impact.
Buddy Aid is not a substitute for professional mental health care or emergency intervention. When there is concern about immediate safety or suicide risk, helping someone connect with appropriate professional or crisis support is itself an important form of Buddy Aid.
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org
We don’t have to wait for a crisis to check in with one another. Buddy Aid works best when it becomes part of how we practice medicine, lead, and care for the people beside us every day.
We’ve gathered additional resources below to help you start the conversation, recognize when someone may need support, and find help when it’s needed.
Buddy & Peer Support
- Buddy Aid steps and ID tags (coming soon!)
- Buddy System
- PhysicianPeerSupport.com – For physicians who would like to receive support or for physicians who want to offer peer support to a colleague.
Physician & Healthcare Professional Support
- Dr. Lorna Breen Foundation – Transforming systems to protect health workers’ well-being and mental health. A United Movement for a Thriving, Sustainable Healthcare Workforce.
- State Physician & Health Professional Programs (PHPs): Confidential support and guidance – https://www.fsphp.org/state-programs.
- FSPHP Sample Hospital Policy: A tool designed to help healthcare organizations establish a confidential, compassionate, and standardized referral pathway to PHPs, promoting clinician well-being, enhancing patient safety, and reducing institutional risk through early intervention. https://bit.ly/4gxr3Ar
- FSPHP Suicide Prevention Resources: https://www.fsphp.org/physician-suicide-prevention-resources
Mental Health & Suicide Prevention
- NAMI HelpLine: 1-800-950-NAMI (6264).
- 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org